Tag Archives: LibPar

Here’s another bit of audio-only content. I did another guest spot on Wizardly Wisdom Podcast. The first one was a blast, but this one is about 20% more awesome. We spoke about the philosophical underpinnings of the libertarian movement, some historical context for different positions people hold to be “the libertarian position”, and why discourse about this discourse is important.

You’ll have to forgive my rough audio, we had some technical difficulties, but I think the content more than makes up for a little echo and click.

This is another audio-only post. Given how out-of-control my life has been with work, my side gig as an Anarchist Consultant, and the birth of my fourth beautiful daughter (and fourth total daughter), I’ve been less able to write things down as I want to be. So, for now, I’m going out of my way to produce more short-form audio recordings on relevant subjects and release those more frequently.

This week, I had the pleasure of being invited on the Wizardly Wisdom podcast.

We discussed a decently broad array of subjects, mostly centered around philosophy and libertarianism. I’m about 70% happy with my performance this time around, so I guess I should apologize for not bringing my “A” game. Still, I think this is an episode worth listening to, and the show over at Kenny the Wizard’s feed is worth listening to, as well.

If you liked this discussion, you’d love the 2016 anthology book, especially the book-exclusive chapter on “late stage anarchism”.

Before you read this post, I recommend that you read my recent post on why I’m doing this. Also, you should probably read No Treason by Lysander Spooner before commenting on this particular post. Most especially, I want you to pay attention to his case for “voting in self defense” (to which I do not ascribe) and his case that a secret ballot proves that a) the government is nothing but a band of criminals and b) that those voting in self defense ought to share their ballot selections in order to promote responsibility for one’s actions (no matter how minor).

PresidentDonald Trump
I wish all the propaganda that the media is putting forth were true. I wish that Trump were a belligerent troll who wanted to go back to “the good old days” when only land-owning men could vote. I wish he were willing to imprison and execute the liberal puppets in the media. I wish he would nominate supreme court judges who were radically pro-gun, pro-life, and anti-left. I wish Trump were a radical social conservative who wanted to deregulate the markets and slash taxes. In other words, I wish Trump were literally Hitler.
Looking at the man and his words, though, the best we can hope for is a man who makes liberals cry, move away, and kill themselves because “he said something mean about that one lady that everyone hates”. There’s no telling what he will do in office, but his rhetoric so far has been the best thing I’ve heard any politician other than Putin say in my lifetime.
Hilary Clinton is evil incarnate, Gary Johnson is a drug-addles cuck who doesn’t even know what libertarianism is and he gives freedom-minded people everywhere a bad name, and all the other third-party candidates are religious fanatics and socialists who have only the most tenuous grasp of reality. This makes Trump preferable… even if the comparison is similar that of being slowly dismembered with a spork versus being shot in the back of the head.

US SenatorLily Tang Williams
This one was a close call between Glenn and Williams. At the end of the day, Bennet will win because of the gerrymandered and skewed electoral pool within the state, so I might as well choose the candidate that has the most sound policies in general. Some may get upset that I’m voting for a candidate that is wishy-washy on abortion, but she’s no less wishy-washy than Glenn if you look at his history. I’m not a fan of her rhetoric on equality and promoting drug use, but her economic policies more than make up for her lack of social conservatism as compared to Glenn

District 6 Rep.Norm Olsen
This was another tough one between the republican and libertarian. The thing that made it difficult was the abortion issue again. On all other counts, Olsen trounces Coffman. The determining factor for me is that neither Coffman or Olsen are actually pro-life; one wants to try to limit, in some regards, some aspects of the abortion industry while the other basically wants to get the government out of the issue altogether (a largely libertarian position). If Coffman were actually anti-abortion, I would be forced to chose him over Olsen, given that he’s not, I am voting Olsen.

Amendment TAgainst
There is a twofold reasoning behind this one. Firstly, because in a free society private enterprises that would serve a similar function to prisons would likely require something that would approach or meet the description of servitude or slavery that the state uses. To disallow, wholesale, that option is to take a step away from a free society. Secondly, because the measure is being put forth by egalitarian cultural marxists in order to push a specific cultural narrative. Barring throwing these people from helicopters, stopping their ballot measures is an acceptable one-tenth measure.

Amendment UFor
Simple: it’s a reduction of taxes. There’s all sorts of minor other arguments taking place; for example, the fact that the state spends more money collecting said tax than they gain means that they are currently literally just stealing our money in order to waste it on things like stamps and envelopes. By reducing the tax burden on small-time property owners, one is also reducing the tax expenditure burden.

Amendment 69Against
A handful of liberal shithead doctors in Boulder want a violent monopoly on all things related to health services in Colorado. It’s nationalized medicine on a state-level, and it will be worse than even Obamacre. Also, my premiums have already doubled, I don’t need them to triple or quadruple. Also, no legitimate law should take up 11 pages of that stupid blue book they send you in the mail.

Amendment 70Against
Any legitimate economist will tell you that minimum wage is a bad idea, unless you are simply trying to kill of ethnicities that are less-able to provide value to others by pricing them out of the labor pool and leaving them to starve. (Or, if you’re a democrat, purchasing them via welfare to become professional voters).
I, personally, would go from having a hard time managing my staff as a facilities manager to being unable to do so at all. My place of work would go out of business (and that, given that it’s a church in a wealthy neighborhood, is an indicator that it would destroy what’s left of the Church in Colorado.)

Amendment 71For
This one took a lot of research and moral/ethical reasoning to decide. Ultimately, the lynchpin argument is thus: If one is forced to be subject to hyper-inclusive mass-democracy, it would be prudent to try and prevent situations like Amendment 69 from arising. If a handful of doctors in Boulder can get enough signatures from CU students to ruin everyone’s lives, that’s a problem.
Yes, it may slow down measures put forth to, say, secede from the Union or to limit the political power of Denver over the rest of the state, but those measures aren’t going to pass anyway.

Amendment 72Against
Again, it’s a simple matter of limiting the crime of taxation. Also, it’s disingenuous to advertise it as a “cigarette tax”, because the language slips in several, much more broad taxation schemes. Besides, sin taxes are stupid.

Proposition 106Against
I’m against it, but not for the reasons that most people would assume. I think the Thomists (mainstream Catholics) have gotten themselves all confused and backwards on issues concerning suicide, but that’s a different blog post. In a free society, I could probably go to Walgreens and buy morphine; they may have a system in place to prevent customers from buying lethal doses, but I could have a friend go get a second not-quite-lethal dose for me, or whatever. That would make something akin to 106 look like a “pro-liberty proposition” (yes, I know that’s an oxymoron).
However, with the way the law itself is written (all nine pages of it), it puts way too much power in the hands of doctors and actually removes certain safeguards against malpractice provided to patients. At the end of the day, I cannot help but get conspiratorial about 106 and think it’s an intentional inroad to the Obamacare “death panels” and political assassinations.

Proposition 107Against
You would think an anarchist wouldn’t have a principled stance on how primaries ought to be conducted. At the end of the day, though, the political parties that exist are voluntary associations of people. By using the violence of the state to allow non-party individuals to impact the goings-on within a party, one effectively destroys the party in any actionable sense. If a handful of my friends decided to build a clubhouse and put up a “no girls allowed” sign, it would be criminal for the state to demand that the activities within the clubhouse correspond to the wishes of women who are, obviously, not in the club. Same idea.
I believe this ballot measure was put forward by the same marxists pushing amendment T. Rather than joining the Republican or Libertarian parties, they would rather just use the aforementioned professional voters to make those parties even more cuck-y and lefty than they already are.

Proposition 108Against
See proposition 107. This is merely pushing the intrusion even further.

Issue 4BAgainst
I am opposed to a good portion of what the SCFD does, and I am certainly opposed to continuing and increasing taxes.

State Board of EducationDebora Scheffel
There’s no actionable difference between the two, so this is merely my anti-democrat bias in action.

Regent of CUHeidi Ganahl
See Board of Education

State Representative District 43Kevin Van Winkle
I’m not exactly impressed with Van Winkle, but Wagner is a died-in-the-wool socialist and should be thrown from a helicopter.

18th Judicial District and RTDNobody
Since the position is uncontested, there is no opportunity to voice a preference. As such, I can’t justify voting on these positions.

County Comissioner District 2 and 3Partridge and Thomas
Just the same as the education positions: there’s no actionable difference other than party affiliation.

JudgesThis one is a tricky one for me. My default setting is to simply vote against retention of all the judges because they are all terrible. At the same time, some are on the better end of the bell curve as far as terrible judges are concerned. In such a case, it may be preferable to retain said judges because their replacements are (statistically) likely to be worse. That looks too much like an endorsement to me, though; I am either going to vote against retaining or not vote with regards to the judges, either on an individual basis or altogether. I haven’t decided yet.

About one year ago, on the old site, I posted an extensive list and brief set of reviews concerning the podcasts I was listening to. People still periodically ask me what I listen to, but the old list is out-of-date. This week, I’m listing my current podcast list and some recommendations for others to listen to.

Podcasts I continue to listen to (in order of importance):

Mad Philosopher Podcast: Yeah, yeah… I know… I listen to my own show, I’m such a dork and a narcissist. I listen to it the day I upload in order to catch major quality-control issues with the show. I’ve already caught and re-uploaded several, so the process works. I recommend everyone listen to what I have to say, too (as any narcissist would).

Very Bad Wizards: My favorite Philosophy podcast, these two guys are hilarious and relaxed. Their content is always fresh and informative. They just discuss issues in ethics and philosophy at random.

Sex and Science Hour: Brian Sovryn and Stephanie Murphy are back, and they’re better than ever. It’s really just Sovryn Tech, but with more banter.

Sovryn Tech: A tech and culture podcast with another paradigm anarchist. A little thick/left sometimes, but always well-reasoned and intellectual, I think Brian Sovryn has done more for liberty than any politician has, ever.

Primal Blueprint: I will be discussing this one soon in a full blog post, but over the last few months I’ve made a lot of health decisions, as has my wife, and this podcast is an interesting source of information.

Radical Agenda: With more passion and rage than even I can muster, the well-read and ever-grounded Cantwell reads the news and gets “triggered”. Lately, he’s been forced into a corner concerning racism and right-wing politics, but I very rarely disagree with him on anything more than tactics. He will also occasionally record a stand-alone rant which always has something important to tell someone.

School Sucks Show: Usually randomly updated, but with long episodes, School Sucks is a show devoted to education and intellectual self-defense. Parents and educators ought to listen to this show, as well as anyone who wishes to be intellectually literate. The host keeps it really fun and very level-headed.

DH Unplugged: A weekly discussion of the financial markets by Dvorak and Horowitz. Very informative about what’s going on in the world, even if one has no skin in the markets. With these two, I know more about what’s going on than even listening to Cantwell or Sovryn.

Tom Woods Show: Updated every weekday, I make it a point to keep up-to-date with this show. Tom is one of the most respectable and most influential anarchists alive today. Every day he has something new and important to share with the world. Everyone, regardless of what they believe, should probably listen to his show. He covers the surface of nearly every topic even tangentially related to liberty and periodically goes super-deep. I also listen to Contra Krugman, Woods’ other show, wherein he and Bob Murphy teach economics by tearing arch-Keynesian Paul Krugman’s works to shreds. It’s not a podcast, but since it’s a product by Tom Woods and it far surpasses either show, the Tom Woods Liberty Classroom needs a mention here. It’ll get you a PhD-level education in history and economics and it’s an excellent tool for figuring the world out. If you use my link, I get a little piece of the action and it helps keep the lights on over here.

Catholic Stuff you Should Know: A podcast currently hosted by my former assistant pastor and my current pastor, they cover a wide variety of subjects, all of which are important to living a full faith life. Lots of fun banter and jokes, lots of educational stuff. It’s exceptionally fun for a Catholic in the process of switching rites, as my former assistant pastor is a Roman Rite priest and my current pastor is a Byzantine priest.

Personal Profitability Podcast: This is a podcast put on by a former co-worker of mine from Summer Camp. It reminds me a lot of “The Art of Manliness” but with more useful ideas about money and less soldier worshiping. He’s a direct descendant of Baal Shem Tov… which is mostly just an interesting sidebar, but also an indicator that he knows his money, (if you know what I mean).

Philosophize This: A fun exploration of concepts in philosophy, seemingly chosen at random. The host has a cleverness about him and a solid grasp of the concepts and contexts he covers. It’s another great show for beginners, as well as a way to fill in the gaps for more well-read listeners.

The Incomparable: After listening to Robot or Not for a year, they finally sold me on listening to their actual show, and it’s a lot of fun.

The Cracked Podcast: Just like the Cracked website, but in audio format. Hilarious, informative, and a little too lefty to be taken seriously. I have fun and learn a lot of trivia.

No State Project: I only started listening a couple weeks ago, but it’s a great exploration of the Socratic method and its applicability in the kangaroo courts of ‘Murica.

History of Philosophy Without any Gaps: A weekly podcast that has been methodically plodding through the history of philosophy from the pre-socratics through today. Each episode is short, easy to understand, and like the name says, has no gaps. Excellent for both beginners and people who know it all. I also listen to the corollary podcast History of Philosophy In India which, ironically, fills some gaps left by the preceding podcast.

Partially Examined Life: The first podcasts I listened to, the Partially Examined life is a monthly exploration of a small group of texts in philosophy. With a healthy balance of irreverence, humor, and knowledgeably, this show is usually a lot of fun, and teaches me stuff I didn’t know in a field in which I’m generally very knowledgeable. They approach the text much the same way a seminar class would in college, but with less authorities around. Since they’ve become the name in philosophy podcasts, they’ve kinda gotten corporate and are trying a little too hard to be “inclusive” in their approach, but they’re still a great listen.

Anime World Order:The snobby older brother to Anime Pulse, AWO updates rarely and sporadically, but I very much enjoy their discussions of older anime, especially since they tend to share similar opinions to my own and expose me to things I’ve missed. They’ve got an older and more refined taste than a lot of anime commentators out there. I grew up on 80s and 90s anime, so that’s still where my preferences lie.

Robot or Not: Five minute episodes in which the hosts determine whether or not a specific piece of technology is a robot. Fun, short, funny. I disagree with their conditions for being a robot, but that doesn’t take away from the fun.

Rationally Speaking: An atheist podcast that focuses primarily on cognitive biases, science, and ethics. On rare occasion they’ll bring Neil DeGrasse Tyson (or some other popular “scientist”) on to shit all over philosophy and religion, but they are usually very nice and even-handed. One of the main hosts left a year ago, but the remaining host has carried along nicely.

Revolutions: A podcast that goes very in-depth discussing the history of drifferent revolutions. I listened to it upon a reader’s suggestion after my post on slave rebellions.

History on Fire: A podcast from Daniele Bolelli (of Drunken Taoist fame). He recounts interesting and often-ignored chunks of history from an amusing angle. The history lessons being my favorite part of the Drunken Taoist, this podcast is pretty awesome.

Downfall with Jared Howe: Technically part of a larger group of shows (seeds of liberty), Downfall is hosted by a guy I met on facebook who is an absolute genius. I finally got convinced by a mutual friend of ours to listen to his show, and I like it.

Samurai Archives Podcast: Exactly what it sounds like. A historical survey of Japanese culture, samurai, bushido, etc. A must-listen for samurai fans.

The Ex-Worker: An AnCom production about AnComs. I still listen to it, even though I’ve had an anti-communist awakening over the last year (alongside Cantwell’s racist awakening). I am still encouraged by their ability to get out and fuck shit up, even if they are fighting the wrong enemy half the time.

Revolutionary Parent: Formerly “Powerful Parenting”, this show is almost never updated anymore, as they’ve moved to a new content method. Their rare piece of content is still worth it, though, as the host coaches people through the methods of peaceful parenting, which is really just NVC applied to children.

Radiolab: This show (still) keeps just barely making the cut. Overproduced, frenetic, and excessively liberal, the only thing that keeps me coming back is the fact that every three episodes or so presents me with something I hadn’t known about previously.

Manga Pulse: A subsidiary of Anime Pulse, a podcast that’s really gone down the tubes since management changed. Manga Pulse is hosted by a couple guys that live in my hometown of Denver and tend to be a lot of fun whenever they actually upload a show.

Eric’s Guide to Ancient Egypt: This show is great for me, as I did a lot of reading about Egypt when I was in high school and never had a chance since. I don’t know if the show’s been cancelled or not, as I haven’t heard much from them since the school the titular “Eric” works at got shot up by a drugged-up leftard.

Podcasts I no longer listen to:

Drunken Taoist: the podcast started getting more and more lefty as I was getting less and less lefty. With History on Fire being several hours at a time, I couldn’t do both.

Rebel Love Show: Degenerate druggies discussing degeneracy and whining about cops. Where Cantwell’s technical roughness is easily compensated for his actual content, the technical roughness of the rebel love show has nothing to hold onto for support.

Lets Talk Bitcoin: As I became less enthusiastic about the inanity of the cryptocurrency “communities”, I lost interest in the daily shows about the inanity of the crypto-space. Still love Bitcoin and still love MaidSafe, but I don’t want to listen to podcasts about regulators regulating what should be free.

East Meets West: I just got bored with them and the other podcasts have overwhelmed my playlist.

Art of Manliness: They started re-treading old roads and shows like School Sucks and Personal Profitability cover a lot of the same material. The soldier-worship started getting intolerable, too.

Matt Walsh: Since I put him on last year’s list, all he’s done is cry about Donald Trump and about how republicans aren’t warmonger-y enough. I’d rather just listen to Cantwell.

Freedom Feens: It used to be fun, but MK Lordes really started getting a lot more time (obnoxious feminist), and the program became the 24-hour “Michael Deen slowly dies on-mike while everyone strawmans Cantwell” show. Ultimately, the daily two-hour shows were just way too much time and way too little content.

Anarchast: Jeff Berwick is a scammy guy and I stopped listening a few episodes after he was seriously entertaining flat-earthers.

Podcasts that have been discontinued:

Superego

Atlas MD (never officially canceled, but I haven’t seen an episode in a very long time)

I was arguing about Aristotelianism and its contributions to communism with a classmate when this upperclassman interrupted and began building a case for restoring a Catholic monarchy. Needless to say, I was neither surprised nor impressed… at least at first. Then, he started using the terminology used in Human Action and really got my attention.

At the end of our conversation, I was far from sold on his case for monarchy but I was willing to read the book he offered me off the shelf in the school library: Democracy: The God That Failed. I read the book and it changed my understanding of the world irrevocably. As a matter of fact, I went back and read the first half of Human Action again, and actually understood it. I wasn’t an immediate convert, though; it would be another two years before I dropped real communism in favor of communism light: republican conservatism.

Why all the autobiography in a book review? I wanted people to know the reluctance with which I engaged the ideas in this book and the profound change it had on my philosophical moorings.

In this book, Hans Hermann Hoppe begins by exploring the historio-economic history of the rise of democracy, explores econ 101 as could only be taught by an Austrian economist who studied directly under Rothbard, and proceeds to describe the economics behind democracy, monarchy, and natural order. Of course, he makes the same case all Austrians do: “Value is subjective, so I’m not going to tell you what to value, but I am going to show you the relationships between various causes and effects so that you can act on those values efficaciously. So, if you value human flourishing…”

The primary focus of Hoppe is the nature of economics and the incentives that emerge under different political arrangements, specifically monarchy, democracy, and anarchy. I couldn’t do the work justice without approaching a page count comparable to the book, but I do want to give you a preview of what’s in store.

In the case of anarchy, economic incentives parallel the Darwinian reality of nature and, where many argue that is a flaw of anarchy, it is inescapable no matter what social structure one builds on top of that state of nature. For example, survival of those best conditioned to live in a particular environment is one such reality. The way this plays out in the absence of the state is that those better suited to delay gratification, cooperate with others, and defend private property are more likely to benefit from a division of labor, specialization of skills, and technological advancement than those who are less suited to such activities.

In the absence of criminal or political elements which undermine these activities, there will be a natural selective process by which those who have these abilities amass more wealth, social capital, and mating opportunities than those who do not. On a long enough timeline, this will create evolutionary side-effects but even in the short-run, market forces naturally puts wealth in the hands of those best suited to invest it in a beneficial manner. Hoppe notes that this process is, both a-priori and historically, the origin of monarchies.

Any given region with sufficient selective processes will eventually have the most well-adapted stock in charge of all or nearly all the land or other resources in the region, making the entire region one large landlord/renter arrangement. Given that this individual in-charge acquired this position by way of making wise investments and mutually-advantageous exchanges, there would be no reason to cease doing so at this point; this means that the de-facto king will continue making decisions directed at improving the value of his assets which, in turn, increases the quality of life of his tenants.

This means that those in service of the king do so by way of voluntary employment: knights, soldiers, constables, etc. provide for the security and management of the king’s assets in exchange for what amounts to wages and employee discounts/benefits. If, at any point, a tenant or employee is unable or unwilling to abide by the rules of the landlord, they can emigrate or be exiled.

It is this liberty which is at the heart of all the incentives for a healthy economy in a monarchy. The king, in order to maintain or increase the value of his property, must strive to make it worth the cost of rent for his existing and potential productive tenants to remain and the tenants must make it worth the king’s time to invest in their quality of life. At the point in time the king no longer allows individuals to leave or otherwise undermines their ability to function within the bounds of private property, he invalidates his rightful claim to the property he is leasing to his tenants and becomes something more like a tyrant or warlord.

With that transition, the people are incentivized to undermine the king’s property value while building their own investments. This leads to “black markets”, political graft, treason, and invitations to foreign kings or barbarians to invade. Such a transition is a death knell for that particular region’s economy and culture. By and large, this is the story of the collapse of the British Crown and Empire. Of course, what came next was less than preferable: the rise of democracy.

In much the same way as when a king becomes a criminal, when a democratic social order is imposed on a people, the economic incentives get turned upside-down. Whereas a king owns the kingdom and has both the natural inclination as well as economic incentive to manage it for the sake of long-term gains, a president does not own the state. Instead, a president has near-unlimited access and control over the criminal apparatus of the state designed for expropriation and market manipulation for a limited amount of time. In such a circumstance, a president is incentivized to raise taxes, secure long-term benefits for himself at the expense of future taxpayers and presidents, and to funnel value into the assets he actually owns and that his friends own.

It’s not just the politicians who are corrupted either. Whereas anarchy and de-facto anarchistic monarchy are naturally eugenic, selecting for those most able to cooperate and produce value for others, democracy is a dysgenic process, selecting for those best able to rile the masses into demanding benefits at the expense of those producing the taxed revenue, those best suited to criminal activity, and actually incentivizing all of the behaviors witnessed in the seediest inner-city slums.

The majority of the text is spent on exploring all off the perverse and dysgenic economic incentives which democracy installs over and above, and in direct contradiction to, the natural order. Given that HHH is the economist and I am not and that he spends about 150 pages on the subject, I’ll leave the rest to him. In the meantime, I want to move on to the final portion of his text.

The final portion of the text is focused on where one could be expected to go in a post-democracy world. Barring a wholesale collapse of western civilization a-la the fall of Rome which preceded the rise of free-market monarchies, it is unlikely that the state will find an appropriate method by which to auction off its properties to the people in such a way so as to undo the undue gains of the corporate entities which have grafted themselves onto the political machine. Instead, modern economic technologies such as mutual and voluntary associations and risk-pools (such as HOAs and insurance companies) can simply begin to compete with the political apparatuses and, due to the nature of voluntary markets, outperform the state and put them out of business, so long as they secure their ability to defend against the states’ violence.

This scenario seems to have a fair amount of potential behind it, given HHH’s economic arguments to the efficiency and efficacy of such a transition. While the arguments are very involved and well-argued, the general theme of the argument is that “The state provides for (or at least, doesn’t wholly disallow) various services, such as the roads, education, security, risk pooling, etc. because there is a demand for it, and in the absence of the state, there would still be a demand for what amounts to our current status quo. He explores the economic incentives that would be in place wile fulfilling those market demands in the absence of the states’ direct influence and the social order that is likely to come about as a result of those demands and incentives.

From what I know of Hoppe’s other works, I think that he finds the outcome he presents to be most preferable. While I have a more traditionalist and rugged individualist bias, which I think would be sustainable in a free-market environment, I find his proposed option infinitely preferable to what we have today. Essentially, we would have all the bourgeois amenities such as grocery stores, roads, internets, common currencies, military defenses etc. without any of the current fallout such as poorly-planned roads, wars of foreign aggression, taxation, and perverted markets.

He makes a compelling case for why competitive insurance agencies would actually manage to provide the services that government cannot in a manner consistent with property rights and individual liberties, all economically-based, of course. The first time I read this book, I was very off-put by his apparent love for insurance companies, but the second time around I realized that he’s not talking about your dad’s insurance companies, the ones twisted and maligned by intimate relationships with state violence and regulations, but real risk-mitigation and risk-sharing pools owned and managed by the people best suited to managing such affairs in a competitive market.

His cases for what ought to come next seem fairly abstract, and he has been called out on that abstractedness by many other authors. To which he responded with a supplementary essay titled “What Must be Done”, wherein he outlines, step-by-step, what he believes to be the most direct and moral route from here to there in modern-day-America. Seeing as how this essay is far more controverial than Democracy: The God That Failed , this is an appropriate place to bring up the most controversial parts of the book (as if advocating the case for monarchy over democracy and anarchy over monarchy isn’t counter-cultural enough). There is a quote of his, from the middle of the book which has become quite popular in my circles on facebook:

He also makes the case that a free market will naturally select for what has been the traditional family and lifestyle structure in the West. It’s not too unreasonable to think this, seeing as how that traditional family structure necessarily emerged from the selective pressures extant at the time (pre-feudal Europe) and still seem to have the most economically sound incentive structures built into them, from the a-priori angle. Where it gets controversial is when he argues that insurance companies (in their free-market iteration) will act to mitigate moral hazard rather than promote it and, that mitigation of moral hazard is likely to result in (justified) discrimination against those individuals choosing alternative lifestyles, such as homosexuality, polygamy/andry, extreme drug use, and other things that the cultural “right” views as deviant. This discrimination could be as benign as increased premiums or as intense as a denial of coverage which, in Hoppe’s propertarian conception, would result in physical exile from certain communities. As I’ve covered in my post on LibPar, this does not necessarily mean the end of the homosexual lifestyle or culture, it merely means that communities would have to form around such lifestyle choices and they would have to either be isolationist or able to compete in the marketplace against their more conservative neighbors.

The book is incredibly well-researched and annotated. There are footnotes on every page, some taking up entire pages in their own right. They are drawn from all sorts of references, not just Austrians; Hoppe calls upon historians of every political persuasion, mainstream econometricians, Austrian economists, sociologists, and more. There are a few texts that he referenced enough times that they have been put on my reading list.

TL;DR: Democracy: The God That Failed is one of the books that, if there were a canon of AnCap literature, would be in said canon. When I first read the book, it neither converted me from my communist ways, nor did it convince me to become a Catholic monarchist as was the intent of the guy that told me to read it. In hindsight, though, it was the only way that I could begin to understand what AnCaps on facebook were saying and gave me something to argue against. As is typical, though, a few years later I could recall the things I had argued against, but had changed my position on all of them. I decided to re-read the book and discovered that, on all the key points at least, I agree with HHH. There are some minor side details and some expressed preferences that I hold contrary views on, but I think this book is a Must-Read, right after Human Action.

Water rights, the tragedy of the commons, cost-benefit analysis,(im)migration, how I may very well be incorrect, muh roads/highways, competition between railroads and highways, ethics vs economic utility and government vs individuals, cardinal vs ordinal values, ethics vs. morals and “thou shalt not murder”, evolutionary biology/psychology, Sustainability in human action, Zomia and the nature of History, Transgender restrooms and democracy, the psychology of voting, the housing crisis, Keynesian economics and my communist roots, Trump-flavored cancer, mass extinction, labor prices and economic growth, minimum wage and education.

This is an audio-only post, and I expect that (provided this becomes a recurring segment) it will remain audio-only. It’s a little bit longer than most podcasts, but I hope you enjoy it. As always, I crave feedback, so let me know what you think, so I can do a better job.

In 1969, two significant libertarians wrote articles for the Libertarian Forum Volume 1. One Karl Hess published a list of questions he felt needed concrete answers from the libertarian community and Murray Rothbard dutifully stepped up to the plate and answered those questions from a principled, pragmatic, and economically-minded stance. Due to some unfortunate circumstances, though, this work of Rothbard’s has been excised from the libertarian consciousness and left to the AnComs to champion.

Rothbard is widely recognized as the arch-AnCap and rightly so. Without too much geeking out, I want it to be known that Rothbard, with nothing but a pen, brain, and lectures, has done more for humanity’s sake than nearly any other individual. Of course, he used that brain, pen, and lecturing gig towards such an end for fifty-or-so years and, understandably, made some mistakes along the way. The most significant of those mistakes, which he admitted to being an unmitigated disaster , was the time he spent on the political left.

Between the left-friendly rhetoric and the apparent inability for most to contextualize and dispassionately read material, “Confiscation and the Homestead Principle” has gone overlooked despite its presentation of what amounts to, simultaneously, the most principled and most actionable solution concerning the problem of de-socializing state property. Admittedly, this is not entirely Rothbard’s fault, as he was answering the questions of Mr. Hess, a bleeding-heart liberal lacking any solid grasp of libertarianism’s philosophical commitments. Instead of shredding Hess’ article for it’s numerous errors, though, Rothbard attempted to address it on its own terms.

Hess was clearly unaware of the inherent “right-wing” nature of libertarianism/anarchism, openly denigrating “the right” in favor for “left-libertarian” (AKA Marxist) presumptions. The most philosophically criminal of which being his overturning of the ontological hierarchy of human activities, claiming that conceptions of rights and property are derived from some goal of human activity as opposed to the other way around. Such an argument is nothing short of a performative contradiction. Additionally, he lifts openly Marxist revolutionary rhetoric and terminology while also demanding that specifics be given concerning environmental agendas, the revolutionary takeover of General Motors, and egalitarian nonsense such as racially-motivated “reparations” programs in the context of libertarianism.

Given the stage of development Rothbard was at and the stage set by Hess, it isn’t surprising how Marxist Rothbard’s response sounds. Despite all the garbage concerning answers to Hess’ stupid questions, Rothbard still produced a gem which demands legitimate attention. Instead of doing what Rothbard ought to have done and devoting my energy to destroying Hess, what I want to do here is mine out the gem Rothbard created using his later, more AnCap material to inform this activity.

Slave Rebellions and the Homestead Principle

It can be taken for granted in anarchist circles that the dichotomy most central to libertarian discourse is that between the state (socialists) and the individual (anarchists). Another, less equivocal, way to name that dichotomy would be that between the criminal (outlaw) and the non-criminal. In order to appropriately understand this dichotomy, one must first come to an appropriate, if basic, understanding of property.

In the tradition of John Locke, property comes into being by way of homesteading. The simplest conception of homesteading is that unowned property enters into private ownership by virtue of an individual investing one’s own property into it, whether it be labor or materials or by way of occupying or otherwise adding value to it. After a certain property is homesteaded, it can easily pass from one owner to another by way of voluntary trade or donation. This is the basis of all forms of human interaction and that which is commonly referred to as “rights”.

For the sake of clarity, a definition of “property” ought to be proffered here. I use the term to mean “any discrete object to which one has access, control over, and a legitimate claim by virtue of homestead or acquisition from the previous owner with the owner’s assent”. Incidentally, I’ve also addressed the concept of “theft” as applies to property before, and recommend that others read the post centered on the issue. In lieu of reading the whole post, one should at least be aware that theft, in this conception, is the unauthorized use, consumption, or acquisition of another’s property.

In such a case that one steals another’s property, one is engaged in crime and is, therefore, deserving of the title and status of “outlaw”. The unfortunate etymology of the term notwithstanding, all it means is that one such individual is not likely to be welcome in polite, cooperative society, so much so that they are likely to, themselves, have property taken from them and be the recipient of violence. Ideally, this circumstance would lead to the outlaw seeking reconciliation with his victims, making the victim whole. Even if reconciliation is impossible, it would still be morally and economically preferable for the outlaw’s stolen property to be confiscated by literally any private individual who can invest it back into cooperative society. Not only should the stolen property be re-appropriated by the market, but also any (formerly) legitimate property belonging to the outlaw which was utilized for that theft.

The clear example of this principle would be a back-alley mugging. Say I take a shortcut down the wrong alley in Denver and find myself held at gunpoint. My assailant demands my wallet. For the sake of discussion, I either hand over my wallet or have it forced from me. It would clearly be justified if I were to promptly re-appropriate my wallet from him. Not only would it be tactically sound, but it would also be morally justified for me to confiscate his firearm and maybe even his getaway vehicle as well. If I am overpowered and some honorable bystander witnesses this event, he would be equally justified in intervening and doing so on my behalf.

This action is preferable and just for three reasons. Firstly, it makes the victim of a crime closer to being made whole and increases the opportunity for justice to take place. Secondly, it decreases the opportunity of the outlaw to continue committing crimes. Thirdly, it sends a market signal that there are externalities and risks associated with committing crimes, thereby reducing the likelihood of others taking such a course of action.

A crime which has only recently been acknowledged as such, historically speaking, is that of slavery. Ultimately, slavery is little more than institutionalized coercion and theft. The (largely fictional) account of slavery in the American South is an easy example of this reality: individuals compelled by the use of force to perform tasks and refrain from others while also being robbed of the fruits of their labor. This description may sound reductionist, but no one could argue that it is not the heart of the matter. The only change that may be warranted would be the addition of some description of scale, but that is superfluous to this discussion.

Given the above description of homesteading, theft, and confiscation along with the popular sentiment concerning slavery, I imagine it would be largely non-controversial to claim that a slave rebellion in such a climate would be morally justified. At a minimum, one who believes the American Revolution was justified would have to acknowledge the legitimacy of a slave rebellion in the South.

Such a fictional rebellion could take several forms. One, unfortunately impractical, instance would be an entire plantation or county witnessing its slave populations simply standing tall and walking off the plantation. I imagine most can see why that would be impossible; given the surrounding environment, it would likely turn out much like emancipation really did. More likely to succeed and more in-line with the first part of this post would be the confiscation or re-homestead of the plantations. Rather than remaining complicit with their slavery (horizontal enforcement, complying with orders, etc.), the slaves could act in self-defense, thereby exiling or executing their masters and confiscating or re-homesteading the products of their forced labor and the instruments by which that theft occurred.

This is where Rothbard’s application of the homestead principle comes into play. How ought the slave re-appropriate the plantation? What options are available? By way of the nature of homesteading, each slave who remains on the plantation and continues to work would naturally come into ownership of his tools and the immediate fruits of his labor. While the theory is simple and broad, the application could be messy and case-specific.

One possibility would be an extreme individualist approach, whereby the individual plants on the plantation would be divided among the farmhands while the individual household appliances and rooms would be divided among the house servants and a micro-economy could emerge whereby the cooks could prepare meals in exchange for the fruits of the field and as rent for staying in the house… but this solution is likely to result in friction: petty squabbles over bits and pieces of the plantation and personal disputes.

An other option would be to collectivize ownership of the plantation whereby a communist micro-state could be formed. Each former slave would continue doing the very things they were before the rebellion, only replacing the masters’ directions with weekly meetings to determine how the plantation ought to be run. Presumably, these meetings would also serve to manage how wealth ought to be distributed amongst the former slaves who choose to stay. Of course, this solution looks far too similar to an Orwell novel and is likely to go as well as the Bolshevik revolution.

A more likely to succeed option would be a sort of middle-ground by which the confiscated plantation would be incorporated, for lack of a more accurate term. It would take a certain degree of commitment and foresight, but the former slaves could divide the plantation into a number of shares equal to the number of remaining former slaves, essentially granting virtual ownership of the plantation to those who re-homesteaded it. This creates an economic incentive to remain and invest labor and play nice with others in order to increase the value of the shares one owns in the plantation. Such activities would increase the dividends and resale value of the share as well as increasing the security of one’s livelihood. However, if one desired to leave, they could, using the dividends or resale of the share to serve as compensation for one’s participation in the labor and rebellion preceding his departure.

Admittedly, this is all hypothetical. To my knowledge, no such rebellion occurred in actual history, which leads me to believe that slavery, writ large, wasn’t as bad as I was told in elementary school. Even so, I only presented three out of a literal infinitude of resolutions of a slave rebellion. Given my more pessimistic views of human genetics, the most likely outcome would be something similar to that which exists in sub-Saharan Africa as opposed to Iceland. However, this hypothetical would be far more likely to end well in the following example.

Before moving further, it is important to draw attention to the basics of this hypothetical. The justification for and the means of achieving this slave rebellion is a combination of self-defense and confiscation in conjunction with the homestead principle, as indicated at the beginning of this post. Self-defense from criminal acts is eminently justifiable, this applies to theft and coercion and, therefore, to slavery. In the case of self-defense, confiscation of the implements of crime-in-progress as well as stolen property is justified as well. Stolen property is, in practice, unowned due to the outlaw effect and the lack of legitimate claim in conjunction with access to the property. Even if that weren’t the case, an executed or exiled criminal’s former property (legitimate or otherwise) is effectively unowned and, therefore, open to homestead.

With this argument in mind, we turn our attention to other instances of slavery. Most widespread, historically and today, is the case of slavery known as the state. By way of regulation, taxation, enforcement, and other euphemistically-named criminal activities, the state coerces specific behaviors, steals and destroys property, and engages in all manner of murderous, coercive, and thieving activities. It is impossible to define slavery in a manner consistent with its historical referents while excluding government in a manner consistent with its historical referents. In Rothbard’s words, “The state is a giant gang of organized criminals, who live off the theft called ‘taxation’ and use the proceeds to kill, enslave, and generally push people around.”

In the case of state-slavery “All taxpayers, all draftees, all victims of the State have been mulcted… Any person or group who liberates such property, who confiscates or appropriates it from the State, is performing a virtuous act and a signal service to the cause of liberty.” In the spirit of the earlier example, “How to go about returning all this property to the taxpayers? What proportions should be used in this terrific tangle of robbery and injustice that we have all suffered at the hands of the State? Often, the most practical method of de-statizing is simply to grant the moral right of ownership on the person or group who seizes the property from the State. Of this group, the most morally deserving are the ones who are already using the property but who have no moral complicity in the State’s act of aggression. These people then become the “homesteaders” of the stolen property and hence the rightful owners.”

The specific examples are largely straightforward: police can take their armor, guns, and vehicles home and take advantage of a sudden demand for private security personnel in the absence of the state. Lawyers and judges can establish arbitration firms. Educators can take control of the facilities and implements of education and continue to teach in a competitive market. Those currently providing non-marketable “services”, such as DMV employees, bureaucrats, union thugs, and military will likely have to find a way to re-brand their respective talents of race poverty. Of course, the slave-holders themselves, the politicians, executive officers, representatives, and lobbyists will face exile or execution. Unfortunately, not everything is that straightforward. What of corporatist entities? General Motors, Haliburton, Koch, MSNBC, the Post Office, and “private” colleges are wholly indistinguishable from the state, itself.

“As a result of zealous lobbying on behalf of the recipient… The same principle applies… they deserve a similar fate of virtuous homesteading and confiscation.” In the case of corporations and organizations that receive half or more of their funds though government institutions, they are effectively inseparable from the state and must suffer the same fate. The military industrial complex, especially, ought to be confiscated from the criminal band known as the state, not only for its complicity in theft but also its open endorsement of globalized murder. Important note: this is a wholly different issue that the legal abuse suffered by firearms and alcohol manufacturers and distributors when their products are abused.

Speaking of these absurdly regulated industries, many of a communist persuasion will argue that all industry is a beneficiary of government and ought to be re-homesteaded. I disagree. Whereas Haliburton is a direct recipient of welfare, most other corporations are merely indirect beneficiaries of the state’s criminal activities by way of limited competition, externalized expenses, and coercing purchase of goods and services. These corporations will be forced, in the absence of the state, to either adapt to the ensuing market correction or fold and sell their assets. Besides, it is morally suspect and quite inefficient to try and homestead every regulated industry. Those that manage to adapt to market correction were clearly sufficiently virtuous enough to deserve protection from re-homestead, whereas those that fold and sell out were vicious enough to deserve such a fate and homesteading becomes superfluous, as those entities are peaceably re-introduced into the free market.

TL;DR: What is required to de-socialize the state and appropriately pursue the abolition of slavery is nothing short of a slave rebellion. Such a slave rebellion must be conducted in accordance with the moral principles of self-defense, confiscation, and homestead. Otherwise, such activities are likely to end in the establishment of an even-less preferable state of affairs, such as that of communism. In the words of Rothbard, “Libertarians have misled themselves by making their main dichotomy “government” vs. “private” with the former bad and the latter good. Government, [Alan Milchman] pointed out, is after all not a mystical entity but a group of individuals, “private” individuals if you will, acting in the manner of an organized criminal gang. But this means that there may also be “private” criminals as well as people directly affiliated with the government. What we libertarians object to, then, is not government per se but crime, what we object to is unjust or criminal property titles; what we are for is not “private” property per se but just, innocent, non-criminal private property. It is justice vs. injustice, innocence vs. criminality that must be our major libertarian focus.”

On Facebook last week, I (largely) inadvertently changed both my cover photo and profile picture to the black-and-yellow Anarcho-Capitalist theme for the first time. This week, of course, small businesses and police cars were torched by Anarcho-Communists around the world in celebration of “May Day”, a Marxist holy day. I figure that now would be the most pertinent time to discuss AnComs in action and AnCaps’ inaction. It’s long-overdue and today is likely the last day I can pretend to be an objective outsider.

Now, I’m going to offend absolutely everyone today, so don’t stop reading when I hurt your feelings… your nemeses will get theirs, too. If I’m going to offend, I may as well start big. I admire two aspects of the AnComs I know and have heard of: they are mutually supportive of everyone even loosely affiliated with anarchism and they are willing to fuck shit up and make a scene.

When one is willing to chain oneself to a tree in Russia as an attempt to prevent the creation of a pit-mining operation, especially if it is likely to end in imprisonment or death, I can infer one or two possibilities. Either, one has nothing to lose, or one is willing to sacrifice everything in order to cause even a modicum of discomfort to one’s enemies. In addition to the dozens or hundreds of AnCom hippies disrupting business as usual, there are thousands publicizing and supporting those radicals.

Many times, even though different factions have incompatible goals, they still promote solidarity between each other. For example, the eco-feminists may protest the petroleum industry and advocate “green” energy in order to smash the patriarchy while also sending money, literature, and publicity to the anti-capitalists destroying the mining equipment used to acquire the lithium for said “green” energies. Obviously, this policy is unsustainable, the moment one group makes actual advances, it will be at the expense of a competing group’s success.

This is where the AnCom appeal to “change everything” comes into play. If Proudhon’s shade were to appear and imbue CrimethInc with phenomenal cosmic powers, they would change everything simultaneously. The eco-feminists and the anti-capitalists would both get what they want; the entire planet would murder all straight men and cease using fossil fuels and the anti-capitalists could establish communist ownership of the lithium mines in order to find far less efficient but more eco-friendly ways of extracting it by hand. Ignoring the inherent coercion and violence in such a solution, it looks vaguely similar to my conception of LibPar.

Unfortunately, the AnComs would not stop at this already impossible set of changes. Communists by default find reality, itself, oppressive. It’s no wonder, though: the very ontology of the universe conspires against many, if not all, of the factions within the big umbrella of Anarcho-Communism. As such, the very operating system of the universe would have to be altered to the point of unrecognizability and absurdity. This state of affairs was once hidden from me in my Marxist days, but came into focus the more philosophically literate I became. This lack of philosophical grounding, though, doesn’t slow down the AnComs one bit.

Conventions and desert gatherings abound. Kurdish feminist AnComs have established themselves as the most effective enemy of ISIS. Unowned and abandoned property around the globe are occupied by AnCom squats. Random communist holy days are punctuated with violent retaliations against state actors. Occupy Whatever finds itself in mainstream media headlines. Anonymous gets pedophiles, terrorists, and legitimate business owners arrested or exiled. Industrial centers burn to the ground. It is no mistake that when average statists hear “anarchist” they think of molotov-wielding college kids; all of this is done at the hands of AnComs, daily, around the globe.

It’s truly unfortunate that these people can be so committed so as to flood prison mailboxes with support of those that get captured by the state and wreak so much damage while also battling the very ontological structure of reality. Imagine if they focused all that undirected fury at their actual oppressors. Instead, the AnComs are relegated to inefficacy and complaining about their successes.

While real AnComs are either in jail or can name several dozen people killed or imprisoned as a result of anti-state activity, I genuinely doubt an AnCap could do more than gesture at Irwin Shiff, Ross Ulbrict, John McAfee, and Derrik J… and only one person on that list really counts. Instead of taking direct action, AnCaps prefer to shout the good news of anarchism on Facebook, iTunes, and YouTube. They write books, give lectures, and look for tax loopholes. They try to teach complicated and abstract concepts to the intellectually crippled masses but, most of all, they argue amongst themselves.

Is the Earth round or flat? Is voting necessary or morally wicked? Is this hypothetical society preferable to that hypothetical society? Is 9mm or .45 cal better personal defense ammo? Is it more effective towards the goal of anarchy to shoot copsor to fuck your wife?

This discussion goes much deeper, though. Without such discussions, we wouldn’t have economics, praxeology, or any accurate sense of ontology. These bases of logic, facts, and evidence provide AnCaps with a cornucopia of toolsets with which to combat the flawed ideologies of both the enemies of freedom as well its misguided defenders. It is this philosophical acuity and epistemic rectitude which has drawn me inexorably nearer and nearer to the ideology of Anarcho-Capitalism, despite my aesthetic distaste for a greater portion of its adherents and agendas.

Why do I find Anarcho-Capitalism aesthetically distasteful (ignoring the clearly superior color choice of the AnComs)? Any reader of this blog will know that I love Woods, Hoppe, Mises, and Rothbard. Those familiar with the literature and politics popular in anarchist circles will note that I’ve drifted closer and closer to Spooner, Molyneux, Cantwell, and Block as time has gone on, even if I still have key disagreements with them. So, it’s clearly not the philosophy or ideology I dislike. It is the lack of action, direct or otherwise. All of us want to be Rothbard, but none of us wants to be Gavrilo Princip, me included. Rather than absolutely every Ancap producing a blog, podcast, merchandise, and peaceful kids and then calling it a day, why not actually engage in capitalism?

The answer is, I ironically, praxeological in nature. I suppose AnCaps, being productive and cooperative members of society, actually have wealth and offspring at risk, whereas voluntarily sterilized squatters and moochers have nothing to lose. I suppose the cost of actually forming a militia or geographically localizing presents inferior or temporally distant gains as opposed to simply working a job, paying one’s oppressors what is demanded, and bickering over whether HOAs or insurance companies ought to replace the state.

“Look who’s talking.”

Me, dying my hair red and black for May Day while posing in front of an AnCap background.

Yeah, yeah, I’m fully aware of the apparent hypocrisy I’m engaged in. So, what am I going to do? What direct action will I engage in and advocate? Other than the usual boring agorist fare I’m already doing: growing my own food, working odd jobs under the table, using bitcoin, etc…. I have a couple ideas. Firstly, I’m self-investing so as to store enough wealth to, someday, abscond to a developing nation and cease paying Empire. Of course, that’s pretty far off… So, in the here and now, I am engaged in producing certain products directed outside of typical AnCap culture as well as marketing certain projects to AnCaps themselves. I prefer to try and be the first on the market, so I will announce said products as they are realized. The proceeds of said projects will, undoubtedly, be invested in successful AnCap activities as well as my own children. (I’m also engaged in direct action… but don’t want to call down legal recourse upon myself.)

There is an idea I am ill-equipped and not geographically positioned to accomplish but really want to spread to those better situated to enact. Those knowing the lore behind my logo may expect me to call for some sort of ecumenical meeting of all anarchists wherein we discover and build commonalities between the AnComs and AnCaps, and I may have done so in the past… but what I want is for AnCap militias and security firms to set up in Seattle, St. Louis, Baltimore, etc. and beat the AnComs at their own game. Protect private property; keep the “protesters” confined to public property and ensure that their fires and violence are directed solely at the state and its enforcers, fly the yellow-and-black flags over the safe properties and stoically bear witness to the carnage between the AnComs and the regular communists. Begin winning the war of ideas by showing the statist hordes what freedom looks like. If it can get results for the KKK, where they simply show up and save private property “because we’re racist against those looters”, how much more success would the AnCaps have doing the same thing “because private property trumps everything”?

TL;DR: Anarcho-Communists like to start fires, break things, and find ways to influence public discourse. It’s too bad that all that direct action is directed at accomplishing disparate and reality-detached goals. Conversely, Anarcho-Capitalists have a pretty good philosophical grounding, probably the best available in all of human history. It’s too bad that all that knowledge results in little more than theory and tax-producing jobs. Typically, this is where I would have said AnCaps should educate AnComs on economics and AnComs should educate AnCaps on how to take direct action. Instead, I want AnCaps to simply demonstrate the utility inherent to Hoppe’s virtues: defend private property at AnCom or BLM riots, buy out undervalued chunks of land and actually start a Galt’s Gulch, and (sure) sell some books or lapel pins along the way.

A discussion I have been avoiding since starting this project is that of descriptive versus prescriptive statements. I have been avoiding doing so because awareness of such delineations is so basic and fundamental to any activity resembling intelligence that I felt readers would be offended that I would feel they could use a reminder of that reality. After so many conversations on the internet and in-person, I think more people need a reminder that would be justifiably offended.

In today’s postmodern culture, inability to compartmentalize or categorize thoughts, feelings, activities, and identities is so widespread so as to be its defining characteristic. As such, people tend to confuse their ideas with their identities, their feelings with their actions, and their descriptions with their prescriptions. This has resulted in what amounts to a culture-wide crisis of logical illiteracy. There are few greater examples of what I mean than the electoral politics currently ongoing.

Descriptions are typically pretty straightforward. With little exception, a descriptive statement is one which establishes a definition or identity. For example, a descriptive statement could be, “Dogs, by nature, are quadrupeds.” That statement describes the nature of dogs. However, it doesn’t fully describe dogs; there are many other creatures that, by nature, are quadrupeds and are also distinct from dogs. It also does not sufficiently describe dogs so as to allow for dogs that have more or fewer legs than four. Despite such shortcomings, it is not metaphysically impossible to establish a set of descriptive statements which encompass the entirety of “dog-ness”, it would just require a lot more time, effort, and linguistic exercise than anyone has yet attempted; instead, biologists and preschool teachers seem to have done enough of that work so as to cover the practically required bases of describing dogs. I don’t know what more I could say to make the idea of a descriptive statement more clear.

Prescriptive statements are only slightly less straightforward. Where descriptive statements indicate how things are, prescriptive statements indicate how things should be. For example, a descriptive statement could be, “The U.S. federal government is $250,000,000,000,000 in debt,” and a prescriptive statement is, “The U.S. Federal government should not be able to incur such debt,” or “The U.S. Federal government should declare bankruptcy.” Some prescriptive statements are more tied to descriptive statements than others; for instance, “Hilary Clinton should be president because it’s the current year!” has a little less to do with reality than the above examples. In most circumstances, a prescriptive statement could be phrased as an ethical claim, too.

As with all statements, both descriptive and prescriptive statements may or may not be factual. “Women make less money than men for the same work,” may or may not reflect reality (spoiler alert: it doesn’t at all) as may, “The voting age should be lowered to 16,” (Spoilers: it shouldn’t). In the case of descriptive statements, facticity can be more-or-less established by way of the standard epistemic process: verify logical validity, compare to empirical and experiential data, compare to alternative descriptions… This process can be more-or-less involved, depending on the complexity and immediacy of the statement in question. Prescriptive statements are usually either subjective or aesthetic in nature: “This soup needs more salt,” or an ethical statement, “If one wants an environment conducive to human flourishing, one ought to avoid hyper-inclusive mass democracy.” Aesthetic statements, while not meaningless, are largely non-actionable to anyone other than the individual expressing said preference. However, ethical statements are verifiable by means of experimentation, reason, and evidence. I’ve already addressed ethical statements before, but it bears repeating in this context.

Of course, two difficulties emerge in the hairiness of common discourse. The first, most common, issue I have seen is making descriptive statements as if they were prescriptive. Easy examples emerge in political discourse. “I’m offended,” “That’s racist/sexist/ableist/insert false pejorative,” “That’s not how the world works,” etc. all describe a circumstance (and may more may not be accurate) without any prescription attached; usually, though, they are stated as if one expects someone else to modify his behavior in some way. Regardless of the facticity of such statements, they contain nothing which warrants action, despite what demagogues and their followers may expect.

The second issue, which seems to be the second most common, is confusing the grammar of the two classes of statements. What I mean is that some very skilled rhetoricians and some clumsy conversationalists manage to hide a prescription in a descriptive statement. This is different from declaring a description as if it has prescriptive power. Unfortunately for both my readers and myself, I am not skilled enough to compose an example and my memory has not yet recovered sufficiently to recall one I have encountered in the wild. As long as one maintains an awareness of descriptive and prescriptive paradigms, though, one can pretty easily identify such an attempt.

If you are a regular reader of the blog, you may notice that most of the posts follow a “description, elaboration, prescription, opinion” format. This is technically accidental in that I did not actively choose to write in such a format. However, it is a habit I have which has been established for quite some time. Without an awareness of ontological and metaphysical reality, no one can make reasonable prescriptions. I’ve already addressed this before, in different terms. Because this is the case, I have practiced the approach of establishing an ontological context before issuing prescriptions and issuing prescriptions in the format of “if-then” statements.

More important to one’s grammar and rhetoric than identifying descriptions and prescriptions in others’ speech, more important even than being careful to make a clear delineation in one’s grammar, I have discovered, is explicitly addressing statements as such. Of course, one can’t go around and preface every statement with “This is a descriptive/prescriptive statement:” Sometimes, such pedantics are appropriate, though. I am still experimenting with this variable to see what gets the best results in the art of rhetoric.

This whole discussion of description versus prescription was brought on by repeated discussions of my favorite Hans Herman Hoppe quote:

“In a covenant…among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one’s own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian [RE: propertarian] social order. They will have to be physically separated and removed from society.”

Taken in its context, this statement is actually a descriptive one, not a prescriptive one. This is a paradigm case of the hairiness of this distinction in common discourse. On an initial reading, outside of its context, this quote will likely sound like an advocacy of “physically removing” the enemies of freedom, so to speak. However, what Hoppe was expressing is a description of the features of propertarian societies which emerge from the underlying social foundations.

A propertarian society, one which holds property rights as paramount to all human activity, is a social order which arises spontaneously out of the chaos of nature (or capitalism, same thing). Each individual property owner is, necessarily, the arbiter of one’s own property, whether it be land, buildings, physical objects, or one’s own body; it is one of the definitive qualities of property. One may use one’s property towards whatever end one sees fit. There are a few activities for which one can use one’s property which result in performative contradiction, though. For example, one can use one’s property to undermine another’s control over his own property (violating the non-aggression principle); in doing so, though, one is acting in such a way so as to disregard the primacy of property in human action. Using property to undermine the concept of property is a performative contradiction.

The entire preceding paragraph consists entirely of descriptive statements. Any prescriptions that one reads into said paragraph are the creation of the reader himself, stemming from his own value judgments. It’s important to note that, here, as the next paragraph is also purely descriptive and if one hasn’t noticed the absence of prescriptions thus far, the significance of the next paragraph will be lost on him.

In allowing the use or trade of one’s property, one subsidizes or incentivizes particular activities. If my friend is a drug addict and he can either afford a meal or drugs, but not both and I buy him a meal I am subsidizing his purchase of drugs by externalizing the opportunity cost he faces. Similarly, if I own a patch of land or a building and allow customers/clients/acquaintances to use that property as a platform to advocate or perform activities which undermine property, such as the political activity of democracy or communism, I would be engaging in a performative contradiction. I would have to physically remove him from my property or otherwise silence him, lest I be using my property to abdicate my property. In a propertarian society, each individual actor holds property rights paramount and would have to avoid such performative contradictions, which would ultimately result in democrats and communists being physically removed from society.

Now, after a thorough exploration of the description of propertarianism with regards to communism and democracy, we get to explore a couple prescriptions. I find Hoppe’s propertarianism infinitely preferable to today’s anti-propertarian environments such as found within Empire, and I want everyone to at least consider Hoppe’s Democracy: the God that Failed. If one wishes to defend one’s bodily autonomy or private property from unscrupulous hordes of rapists and murderers, they ought to familiarize themselves with both the distinction between descriptive and prescriptive statements as well as the nature of human action and property. Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom does a great job of both.

TL;DR: Many people confuse descriptions and prescriptions. In common conversation, it isn’t usually too important a distinction. “If you consume this substance you will die,” is often taken as a prescription to avoid consuming said substance. It is technically only a description, though. If one were to wish to die, one may wish to consume the substance. This difference between description and prescription becomes fundamental when engaging in politics and culture. Without proper awareness of descriptive versus prescriptive statements and the “if-then” structure of prescriptions, one is going to be met with failure and, when the violence of the state is involved, cause incalculable damage. Oh, and you should read Hoppe and sign up for Liberty Classroom.

A little over a year ago, I felt compelled to write a blog post about national borders. As that discussion is a perennial subject for every ideology to fight over, I felt I had plenty of time to double-check my understanding of the matter before posting and still seem relevant. Boy, was I surprised.

This was an issue that everyone seemed to agree to disagree on, relegating the discussion to election years only, during which the nation would compare and contrast open borders with slightly-less-open borders. Of course no-one would question the premise of the existence of borders being necessary. Anyway, out of nowhere, a wealthy, aggressive alpha male appeared in this election cycle, running on a platform that amounts to, “We need an almost-closed border, build a wall.” Donald Trump managed to take an issue most anarchists thought they agreed on and turn it into an issue so divisive in anarchist circles that the word “schism” has been thrown around… which is rare in a community built on debate and philosophical adversity.

I have heard and read a great many arguments before this hidden powder keg was lit, and probably twice as many since then. Not surprisingly, my position has remained largely unchanged in all this mess. That’s not to say the ideas I post here are entirely unchanging and correct, but it does reflect my confidence that my position is consistent with the principles outlined on this blog and the principles of anarchism.

To be clear, (because this somehow got confusing in recent history), I am discussing national borders. I’m discussing the cartographical phenomena of lines drawn on a map delineating “state A” and “state B”, and the subsequent expectation that a matching line be drawn in the sand and walls and enforcers be stationed along that line. This is a different phenomena entirely from what could be called “property lines” or some other defined boundary of private property. That being said, what is the nature of national borders?

A national border is largely comparable to a dam. A government subsidizes the creation of an infrastructure to manage the flow of resources from one place to another. In the case of a dam, it’s typically the flow of water (carrying fish, generating electricity, being used for agriculture, etc.) from uphill to downhill regions. Some times, things flow uphill, such as fish, but it’s usually a downhill function. In the case of borders, it is typically the flow of individuals (carrying material goods, generating revenue, performing labor, etc.) being regulated. Different dams regulate differently and with different goals, just like borders.

The consistent elements among all borders are that they are subsidized by the state, they are considered to be state/”public” property, they are the edge of (certain types) of jurisdiction and they can be open (to varying degrees) or closed. While there could be variations not explicitly addressed by this approach, I feel addressing the US or EU border as a reasonable microcosmic example of these commonalities. For example, the US border exists, in any actionable sense, because the ICE and law enforcement say so. In theory, the ICE and El Paso cops can’t arrest me for selling Anarchapulco Gold in Chihuahua, but they totally can if I happen to do so on the US side of that cartographical line.

These enforcers are funded by a mixture of taxation and Federal Reserve loans (using our descendants as collateral), which means this activity is endorsed and encouraged by the state, AKA subsidized. The (almost) reasonable comparison of national borders to private property lines is useful at this point. Regardless of the moniker (“public land”, “open land”, “federal land”, “the commons”), the actionable reality is such that “public land” is the ill-gotten property of the state, and said state enjoys all of the rights that come with property. In the same way I could subsidize my friend’s bad relationship choices by allowing him to sleep on my couch when he gets kicked out, the state can subsidize the bad economic and social policies of neighboring peoples by allowing them to stay on “public land” and take advantage of the welfare beyond that border. Conversely, a state can be selective or prohibitive with regards to such subsidization. It can pick and choose who is allowed in or out or simply close the border.

History has borne out the shortcomings of open, semi-open, and closed border policies alike. The Iron Curtain, Berlin Wall, and DMZ of Korea demonstrate the economic fallout inherent in isolationism at scale as well as how difficult it is to enforce a closed border. The litany of empires that have come and gone, for the most part, fell victim to the failures of a semi-open border policy; productive citizens fleeing the slavery of the state, welfare leeches and foreign enemies getting in, all coupled with the perpetual cost and externalities of enforcing the border. The significantly more rare examples of open borders present no less dire a prognosis; one need look no further than the ongoing implosion of socialist Europe to get an idea of what open borders look like.

Given the state of political and philosophical discourse in the current election cycle and the ongoing invasion of Europe, I would be remiss in not addressing Trump and his wall., I am against Trump no less than I am any of the criminals vying for the throne of Empire this year. That said, as long as anti-discrimination laws, welfare statism, and elections exist, the violence of the state and tax dollars would do less harm constructing an enforcing a border wall and an almost-closed border policy than subsidizing the importation of individuals with goals contrary to that of successful human enterprise, which is the alternative. Trump’s wall will become the biggest tombstone on the largest mass grave in human history, and that’s the least damage that can be done with the border of Empire, at this point. Terrifying.

I managed to make it halfway through a post being charitable to the concepts of statism… I think that’s a new record. Now, lets get some anarchism up in here. Borders are bullshit. As I stated above, history dictates that borders don’t work. Borders and states are as close to synonyms as two words can get without actually being synonyms. One of the few truths uttered in the presidential debates this last year is, “There is no state without borders.”
“But… if you want Trump to build a wall, how can you want to get rid of borders?” This is a fair question. In order to answer it, I have to explore a basic economic question first. Migration, like all of human action, is a response to market signals; so, what signals would current migrants be responding to? Not jobs, America currently suffers from the largest labor surplus in history. Not for security, America has both the highest incarceration rate and largest prison population in human history. Not for quality mates, America has an extraordinary rate of genetic and self-inflicted diseases like diabetes, obesity, heart disease, depression… and that doesn’t include the growing population of beta males and feminazis. The only answer that holds water is the innumerable forms of state subsidization of migration.

If I were to push the “end the state” button today, immigration would dry up instantly. Even if it didn’t, though, the damage that could have been caused by said migration would not occur. Without a state apparatus to steal from producers of wealth and subsidize their inferiors, a state apparatus of wielding violence against one’s betters, a state apparatus preventing intelligent and voluntary interactions, and whatever other state functions immigrants are currently responding to, migrants would be faced with the same challenges as everyone else: get a job or starve, don’t initiative violence or you will get killed, respect private property or you’re gonna have a bad time.

“But what about ISIS? Without a wall…” This is me, being totally unafraid of ISIS. They are too busy doing statism on the opposite side of the world, murdering peaceful people, stealing, raping, you know, the same things that the government does over here. If, somehow, ISIS manages to conquer the Middle East, fend off a Russian invasion, not provoke Israel into stepping up it’s genocidal agenda, get through Europe, and proceed to eliminate every privately-managed American shipping company’s navy (which would totally be a thing once the government is eliminated, can’t let those destroyer ships go to waste), they would be treated the same way every home-grown criminal would be. Unless, by “ISIS”, you mean “muslims”. If that’s what you mean, there’s a much more peaceful and cost-effective solution, one which has been illegal for quite some time: private property rights.

If you’re in my house or place of business, you follow my rules or get kicked out. Most of those rules would likely be intuitive: no violating the NAP and adhere to posted social norms (‘no shirt, no shoes, no service”, “no smoking”, etc.) Some businesses may even cater to outliers: fight clubs, smoker-friendly restaurants, nudist beaches, etc. Depending on where you live in LibPar, one such social norm may be “No Muslims allowed”. Someone is far less likely to jump on a bus, shout “allahu akbar” and explode if the entire town is private property and all private property owners have a “no looking like you are wearing a suicide vest” rule.

“But… RACISM!” So? I’m not sure what you are concerned about. If the individuals being discriminated against are equal or greater than others with regards to ability to provide value to others, those that do not discriminate will out-perform those who do. This will send a market signal deterring discrimination. Conversely, if the individuals being discriminated against are inferior in that regard, such discrimination is warranted and those who discriminate will out-perform those that don’t. To argue against this position is to tacitly admit that one believes a particular demographic is, in fact, inferior; in other words, to argue against this position is to be racist.

One issue which was indirectly addressed in this post but warrants explicit mention is the myth of “right to travel” or “freedom of movement”. No matter how one formulates such a concept, it is a “positive right” which, as readers of my book or attendees of Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom will know, can’t possibly exist. I have as much “right to travel” as I do a “right to functioning kidneys”. If, for whatever reason, my kidneys fail, no one has an obligation to give me theirs and I cannot be justified in stealing them. The same goes for right of travel; my ability to do whatever I want ends where your property begins. If for whatever reason, I am not welcome on your property, I have no right to travel into your place of business, your home, or your butthole without invitation.

TL;DR: The arbitrary lines drawn on a map by which criminal gangs determine jurisdiction, AKA national borders, are as unnecessary and misanthropic as the gangs themselves. Every vaguely legitimate function of national borders are better accomplished by simply reinstating private property rights and letting nature take its course.

I recently came into custody of a copy of Adam Kokesh’s book “FREEDOM!” on the way to a friend of mine. I figured there would be no harm in quickly reading through the text, myself, while I was waiting for my chance to pass it along to the appropriate party.

At 97 pages, with large font and margins, it’s a pretty simple read. It’s written in articulate prose while using a third-grade vocabulary, effectively accomplishing the stated goal of the author: to be accessible to as many people as possible, at any reasonable cost. The book is available in every format imaginable and is free in nearly every format as well.

If someone wants to read (or wants someone they know to read) the basic concept of freedom and non-aggression in a calm, reasoned, amenable voice, this is likely the text I’d recommend. It isn’t as philosophically or economically involved as I would prefer, but not everyone can just read Human Action over the weekend and become an AnCap; not even I, myself, was able to accomplish such a feat (I read it in two weeks and it took about a year to become an AnCap). A compromise between the task of reading Human Action or the less-involved (and, while effective, less satisfactory) process of reading “FREEDOM!” would be to look into Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom or read My Book.

In the spirit of Rothbard, Walter Block presents a treatise on the relationship between crime and economic manipulation, semi-appropriate ethical indignation and the unintended consequences of using violence to try to prevent those ethically unappealing actions.
In Defending the Undefendable, Walter Block defends the heroin dealer, the speculator, the employer of child labor, and the man who screams “fire” in a crowded theater against accusations of economic perversity and harming the social order. He does so quite effectively. After reading this book, one who is educated in economics will have to seriously reconsider support of a minimum wage and legal prohibitions against child labor.
The introduction, written by Rothbard himself, makes it clear that while the people defended in Block’s book are heroes because of the role they play economically and the adversity they face in reducing the friction of a politically-controlled economic system, this is not a moral defense of the particular actions the people make. For instance, a heroin dealer could very well be a boon to the market and a hero in face of the evils of government while also perpetrating an immoral or unethical act (such as selling poison to people, even if it is a voluntary interactions).
As compelling, concise, and informative as the book is as a whole, there is one chapter, however, that doesn’t seem to belong. The defense of the “Male Chauvinist Pig” was less an economic defense of chauvinism and much more an incoherent and aggressive defense of feminist talking points, most prominent of which being the importance of abortion. This defense of abortion is actually inconsistent with a much more compelling case he makes later on in the case of defending “The Employer of Child Labor”.
All-in-all, though, this book is a must-read for anyone who believes in the free market but hasn’t critically assessed their position on “the undefendable” as of yet, people who are genuinely interested in reducing crime and increasing the quality of life for the poor, and those that still believe that government violence can somehow improve the world. Each chapter is a few pages long, very direct and to the point.

Before any commenters speak up, I am totally aware that I plug a lot of Tom Woods on this part of the blog. Some day, I will be plugging a lot of Rothbard and Spooner, but I need to get my priorities sorted out with them… they were very prolific writers and, while it would behove anyone and everyone to read the entirety of their works, I feel it would be prudent to focus on the highlight reel in this section. I am doing the same with Woods, currently.14 Hard Questions for Libertarians: Answeredis an excellent resource. Where reading Rothbard and thinking things through from first principles (fundamental economics, the NAP, etc.) will inevitably produce the same or similar answers to those in this book, it is an amazingly simple and accessible resource for beginners, people who can’t be bothered making freshman-level arguments with detractors, and people who may have done all the heavy lifting themselves and may have a couple blind spots.

I, personally, land in all three categories. I’m an anarchist of only about two years, and I have a lot of catching up to do, I’ve already cited and linked to this book twice on facebook in arguments with people that are intelligent but ignorant, and was surprised to find myself reassessing some of my stances on things. Most especially my position on Prisons in a Free Society has come into question, and I’ve been inspired to do more reading in primary sources and more critical thinking about how I arrived at my position. I expect to make a full blog post in the future, once I’m done researching and revising my position.

This week, I am clearly picking the low-hanging fruit. I have to admit, working on my book last month and getting so worked up last week seems to have burned me out. I’d rather just read Dostoevsky and listen to Dimmu Borgir in my free time this week. Instead, I’m going to lean on my default post-type and define something while looking at the etymology and philology of the term.

Looking at my definition of anarchy (and the preceding discussion), it would seem that I am doing things backwards. Typically, people define anarchy as “the absence of government”; I argue that anarchy was here first and government is the absence (or privation of) anarchy. I could leave the conversation at that, but I wouldn’t be doing the history of the word its due time, nor would the subject warrant a full blog post.

“Government” is one of the many words that English-speakers have lifted from the French, like buffet, ballet, abatement… lots of words that end in “t”, it would seem. In the French use of the word, it largely means the same thing it does in English: “The group of assholes who violently claim arbitrary swaths of land and the people and fruits thereof”. Technically, the noun form of the word is derived from the original verb, “To control or dictate.” Unless we are speaking of self-governance, that sounds an awful lot like coercion and slavery.

As a matter of fact, that’s where the French got the word. Somehow (there’s some debate in academia), the French got a hold of an ancient Greek word: kybernan. Kybernan is the Greek word for “piloting a ship”. Pretty innocuous and maybe even voluntarist, right? Well, this word came into widespread use in the time of Greece’s heyday of naval warfare and mercantilism. Still innocent-sounding? The ships of that period were not diesel or cesium-powered, nor were they steamboats or sailing ships; they were powered by slaves. The primary method of steering a ship was by dictating the manner, rate, and direction the slaves were to row.

It would seem that kybernan has managed to keep it’s meaning fairly well through its multiple iterations. The federalists, especially Madison and Hamilton, were particularly fond of descriptions and metaphors for government that, while not quite “The citizens shall be like slaves rowing a trireme while me and my friends whip them,” were not much different. Interestingly enough, the prefix “cyber-” is derived from the very same Greek word. “Cybernetics” or “systems theory” is inextricably tied to government, too. In today’s vernacular, “cyber-whatever” usually means “computer-y” or “robot-y”, but cybernetics is a field of study much older than computers and robots. Cybernetics is a tradition that reaches back to Plato, but has changed dramatically from it’s origins in “studying regularity in closed systems” into a form of sociological alchemy pursued by many famous intellectuals such as John Dewey, Norbert Wiener, and Alan Turing. This set of theories were predicated on the idea that human environments were closed systems which could be molded by internal and external factors. The idea driving cybernetics was the idea that the masses of under-educated and working castes could be molded into a sort of perpetual-energy machine, sustaining both itself and the lifestyles of the enlightened progressives. All such an endeavor would require is the perfect admixture of coercion, theft, violence, and mind-control.

This may sound like a crazy conspiracy theory, but it is truly a matter of mainstream historical fact. On need only read the writings of those involved in the project to confirm its facticity. Besides, there’s already a popular (and crazy) conspiracy theory about the word “government” that I need to dispel. Rather than focusing on the historical reality of Dewey’s obsession with cybernetics and government, some say that “government” is either Old English or Latin for “governing minds” or, alternatively, “mind control”. Given the relationship between cybernetics and western governments over the last century-and-a-half, it isn’t surprising that one would assume that “government” and “mind control” are synonymous, but there is one degree of separation betwixt the two; it’s just a funny philological quirk that it worked out that way. As is usually the case, it is better to address historical realities and actual conspiracies instead of creating imagined conspiracy theories out of ignorance.

While fun, this linguistic foray has done little to define the term “government”. Unless, that is, we are going to define government as “slave-driving on an ancient Greek boat.” I guess I went on this tangent to bolster the case for my definition, but before I deliver the punchline and just tell you my definition, I have one last point to touch on.

Those Greek slaves were different in nearly every way from the slaves in America circa 19th century, and both were equally different from slaves in Egypt circa the 20th century BC. What, then, is common to each “slave” to make them such? Slaves in the American south were largely allowed to do whatever they wished when not working, so “total loss of autonomy” doesn’t work. Slaves in Greece were afforded second-class citizenship and some degree of representation in government, so “lack of legal ‘rights” and “lack of political representation” does not suffice. Many slaves in Egypt became such voluntarily, as an alternative to the death penalty or to pay off family debts, so even “being conscripted from your home country” doesn’t work. Similarly, nearly every alternative faces similar counterfactuals.

However, even in the case of Greek slavery (which had the most liberty regarding property to my knowledge), that property was more-or-less rented from the local government and could be repossessed via an ancient Greek eminent domain from which real citizens were secure. Therefore, I think I’m going to take a page out of the AnCaps’ book and say that the defining characteristic of a slave is a systematic or institutionalized denial of one’s property rights. It wouldn’t be surprising, then, that Marx would have found the average family of his day to be a form of slavery. I’m sure you’ve already guessed where this is going; kybernan, being equivalent to “slave driving”, and “government”, being equivalent to “an absence of anarchy” gives us a historical basis for saying “government” is best defined as, “an institutionalized denial of one’s property rights”. I have not yet been presented with an example of government, in the abstract or specific, which fails to meet this criteria, nor have I encountered an instance, in the abstract or specific, of an institution which is not a functional equivalent to government which meets this criteria.

Taxation is functionally equivalent to declaring superseding ownership over another’s property or self and demanding rent for continued use of that property or self. Property tax is a declaration of ownership of land and improvements upon the land. Income tax (by the books) is a declaration of ownership concerning monetary gains that arrive in the owned territory and is also (in practice) a declaration of ownership of one’s labor. Sales (and the synonymous “value-added”) tax is the declaration of ownership of both (or either) the property changing hands and/or the relationship between the two parties. This list is as long as the list of things taxed.

Law enforcement is functionally equivalent to declaring ownership of either one’s self or one’s actions (same thing, really). Even the most honorable and benevolent law-maker will admit (as the Federalists openly did) that laws are designed as an attempt to control individuals. I’ve already addressed the relationship between control and ownership, so we don’t need to discuss that now.

In establishing a monopoly on certain services (de-facto or explicitly) such as defense, security, infrastructure management, financial instruments, etc., governments establish a claim on either the concepts themselves or every specific instance of such things. For example, I can’t own a tank, arrest someone, build a power generator, mint coins, deliver packages, or even opt-out of having those services provided without explicit permission. Of course, all of these services are provided by way of stealing my property and by taking out loans from central banks using me and my descendants as collateral… yet another explicit claim of ownership over myself and all I own.

Someone can attempt to contrive something that looks like, and achieves similar outcomes to government without violating property rights. So far, every time I’ve witnessed such attempts, the attempt either fails to meet so simple a moral standard or is, effectively, a description of AnCapistan. This is how I, myself, became an anarchist. I was a communist out of an Aristotelian notion of positive rights and the need for government to provide them. After a decade or so of trying to explicate and enumerate rights and how they could all be upheld without contradiction, I realized that it is metaphysically impossible to uphold positive rights and that the government can’t even protect one’s negative rights.

TL;DR Government, the absence of anarchy, is ultimately defined by one identifiable function. Every historical example of government presents some feature or behavior unique from or contradictory to another, save one. Interestingly, slavery is defined by the same function which is fitting given the etymological root of the word: kybernan. Government is “the institutionalized denial of property rights.”

Howdy? I am the titular Mad Philosopher of this particular work. I am a philosopher in my late twenties. Rather than focusing your ire on my lack of years, though, you may feel more vindicated by directing such feelings towards my lack of academic credentials. I am a proud college dropout who routinely speaks out against the academic industry.

How can a man claim the title of “philosopher” without a degree or a chair at university? What are the
necessary and sufficient conditions for one to be a philosopher? I would argue that a philosopher is one who habitually engages in the activity of philosophy. Of course, philosophy itself is quite controversial. Is it merely thinking deep thoughts or questioning authority, or is it building a vocabulary and grammar for describing and discussing the human experience? Is it the activity of stoners and pedophile Greeks or is it the activity of academics and lawyers?

I am working on publishing a book dedicated, in small part, to addressing this controversy. In the mean time, readers of this blog (and listeners of the podcast) will notice a few family resemblances betwixt the entries on this blog which may inform the readers concerning what I believe philosophy to be. Readers of this introduction will receive the added bonus of my current working definition being explicitly provided here:
“Philosophy is the ongoing exercise of attempting to create an internally consistent, logically sound, empirically viable, and universal worldview which possesses ethical agency, utility, and (ultimately) Truth.”

I have been engaged in just such an exercise ever since I began reading the Nicomachean Ethicsat the naive and virginal age of eight years. This has resulted in incalculable quantities of reading, writing, and arguing over the course of a couple decades. Also in that course of time, I have camped under the open sky for just shy of one thousand nights, earned the rank of Eagle Scout, renounced the honors associated with such an award, attended and dropped out of university (earning an associate’s degree in philosophy despite being a mere 20 elective credits short of a bachelor’s degree), married a (still) smokin’ hot woman, sired three beautiful daughters, and a bunch of other life experiences that likely only matter to me. These experiences have informed my worldview, though, and I thought it only fair to share them with you.

I tend a 500 square foot microfarm which provides nearly one ton of food each year. I make a meager living working facilities and maintenance at a church. I make time, daily, to work on this blog and my books as a matter of vocation and passion. I host philosophy clubs, play Dungeons and Dragons, shoot guns, do landscaping work, and tutor in writing, logic, and philosophy on the side.

More important than the man, I believe, would be his ideas. I doubt you are reading this blog to get to know me, personally, and are instead interested in engaging some unique and challenging views presented in a rational and grounded manner. Why else would someone read a blog titled “Mad Philosopher”? I cannot guarantee that any of these ideas presented will be unique in their substance, given that it is far more common for one to read numerous sources and simply synthesize a new arrangement of old ideas. I do guarantee, however, that I do what I can to make these ideas digestible to all audiences, that I try to make the form of the discussion engaging and bite-sized, and that these ideas are central to a series of worldviews and schools of thought which I contend ought to be at the heart of a fulfilling and eudaemonic life.

Many individuals, across the entire spectrum of intellectual ability, strive to eschew labels and “-ism”s in order to not bring others’ baggage into a discussion prematurely and to avoid feeling constrained by specific doctrines or dogmas. It may be my semi-religious upbringing speaking when I say it, but I find labels and “-ism”s to have a very unique and indispensable utility. For instance, I can provide you with a list of ideologies and “-ism”s which are the strongest influences on my worldview and method of reason, and that will help frame the discussion on this blog in such a manner that you are less likely to misinterpret my arguments.

As a matter of fact, that is what I intend to do. I will list here a series of ideologies and methods to which I owe my worldview, in order of philosophical priority, with each successive entry on the list obtaining only insofar as it is compatible with the preceding entries. I, Mad Philosopher, am a/an:

Epistemic Popperian: Of course, I have to put the most complicated entry at the top of the list. In all reality, it’s not too complex, only the terminology. Basically, I believe that “knowledge” defined as “justified true belief” is something to be approximated due to phenomenological limitations of the human mind (we can’t necessarily trust our senses and interpretation of experience). When one makes a knowledge claim, it must be accompanied with falsifying criteria: criteria that, if met, would force one to renounce the held belief. This is (ostensibly) the driving mechanism behind the scientific methods. I like to think that this is the underlying operating principle for all of my claims, given that I have had ample opportunities to change my mind concerning a great many important subjects. Reading this blog will gradually expose one to this catalogue of mind-changes.

Anarchist: This blog is technically about philosophical subjects in general. However, I choose subjects for blog posts based primarily with discussions I have IRL (in real life) and on various spots on the internet. As such, most of my posts would center on the most contentious of my beliefs. anarchism is, by far and away, the most controversial. Not because people would disagree with the premise (people shouldn’t murder, coerce, or steal from others), but because they don’t want to apply that claim to their own behavior in an intellectually consistent manner. as far as the AnCom vs AnCap debate is concerned, I like to call myself “merely an anarchist“, but I am fairly economically literate, which would make most people consider me an AnCap by default.

Catholic: Yes, an anarchist can be Catholic and vice-versa. I have not fully explored this discussion in a blog post yet, but I assure you, it’s on its way. For now, It will have to suffice to say that I believe the doctrines of the Church to have sufficient falsifiability criteria to be provisionally assented to and that the doctrinal moral teachings of the Church bolster rather than contradict the Non-Aggression-Principle in any of it’s more intelligible forms. One will notice that I have issues with Catholic social teaching and a great many non-doctrinal claims. These issues are informed by the preceding entries on this list as well as a simple rational and critical inquiry into the teachings of such figureheads as Aquinas and Augustine.

Optimist: As a Catholic, I believe that this must, in fact, be the best of all possible worlds (It would have to follow from the claim of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God). There’s is the glaring issue of the problem of evil, regarding which I have several posts in the works. Given my issues with Aquinas, I am disinclined to endorse the Augustinian Theodicy (which is really a construction of Aquinas’) and instead hold to a cross between the Irenaean Theodicy and what I call the Rorschach Theodicy.

Brutalist: Almost as if to balance the claim of optimism (this is the best of all possible worlds) I also believe that this world sucks. Mankind has largely been concerned with the activity of enslaving, domesticating and murdering itself throughout all of known history (excepting the possibility of pre-agricultural revolution, pre-government times), and this has resulted in a world wherein humans are a tortured, maligned wreck. Unfathomable potential squandered by the lazy and criminal. This is why I listen to Death Metal.
Taking on the label of brutalist is a sort of double-entendre, as there is the general disposition of a metalhead which is called “brutalism” and there is a line of libertarian/anarchist thought which strictly adheres to the Non-Aggression Principle. When I say I’m an anarchist, my particular brand of anarchism very closely resembles that of the brutalists to begin with. I do have various ethical and virtue-oriented prescriptions above and beyond that which the brutalists allow for, that’s why Catholicism precedes brutalism in priority on this list.

The name “Mad Philosopher”, itself, is a double-entendre. It’s obviously an homage to the popular phrase “mad scientist”, which seems appropriate: a mad scientist is often depicted as a social outcast reviled by other scientists and engineers for holding unorthodox views and implementing unorthodox methods. Would not this blog be the philosophical equivalent? That aside, I consider myself “Mad” in the same spirit as the mad scientist. Additionally, I am mad… well… livid, enraged, infuriated, wrathful, incensed, disturbed, repulsed, inflamed, and tempestuously, violently so. It is beyond my comprehension how one could be aware of the circumstance of contemporary culture and not at least feel a twinge of the pain, outrage, or guilt that I feel is warranted and just.

This blog is an opportunity for me to sublimate some degree of the infernal wrath I harbor, so as to maintain a level head in my day-to-day life while also hoping that others’ minds will catch fire as well. While I expect no amount of success with this project, if I were to have my way, this blog would generate a sufficient following such so as to instill a culture of resistance and intentionality. This culture would aid in making the world a better place in general, but also (more importantly to me) aid in the possibility of starting an actual intentional community outside the reach of Empire so that I can achieve some semblance of freedom in my lifetime. Oh, and it couldn’t hurt to get some bitcoin and sell some merch. on the side.

“So if you now number yourself among the disenchanted, then you have no choice but to accept things as they are, or to seriously seek something else. But beware of looking for goals: look for a way of life. Decide how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living WITHIN that way of life.” Hunter S Thompson

Rothbard mentioned “Button Pushers” in his work “Do you Hate the State?” If there were an “abolish all government” button, I would push it with such fervor and force I would likely injure myself and those around me. I believe, with a fair degree of certainty, that what would follow would be a relatively peaceful and gradual shift in peoples’ behavior and attitudes such that a culture of responsibility and respect would slowly grow out of our current slavery. However, even if I knew that the result would be an immediate collapse into “the Purge” or “Mad Max”, I would still push the button without hesitation.

You see, I’m a deontologist of sorts. It’s no mistake that my last post was about ethics. Deontology, at least my particular brand of it, is an ethical framework centered on moral absolutes and individual action. In other words, I believe that, regardless of circumstance or outcome, murder, coercion, and theft are categorically immoral. I believe that the ends never justify the means and that ethical reasoning applies exclusively to the decision at hand and not the past or the future. Considerations of goals, intentions, consequences, etc. only enter the picture after the moral absolutes sort out the morally justified and the unjust actions available. Alternatively, after one determines the most desirable course of action based on such considerations, one must verify that it does not violate moral absolutes. This is all a direct result of my broader philosophy, but that discussion is best left to another place and time.

If Deontology Man were a superhero (he’d be Rorschach), he would need an arch-nemesis. This arch-nemesis would be (Ozymandias) The Utilitarian and his sidekick/son, Consequentialist. Utilitarianism is a sterile, mathematical approach to life and ethics. Its goal is to maximize quantifiable pleasure for the maximum number of people. Imagine giving Spock or the T-800 the keys to the kingdom and the directive of maximizing everyone’s pleasure. Best case scenario, you’ll find yourself in a Peter Singer (advocate of murdering retarded kids and granting whales constitutional rights) book; worst case, scenario, you get “The Matrix”, but with more robot sex slaves and limitless cocaine.

What does deontology and utilitarianism have to do with LibPar and utopia? You’ll see, but we mustn’t forget Consequentialist. Consequentialism is a form of utilitarianism which uses the results of an action to retroactively determine whether or not it was a morally good or bad action. In the example of the miraculous “abolish government” button: if my guess were correct, it would be good to push the button and if we wound up with Mad Max, it would have been bad. A lot of people are sympathetic to this line of reasoning; a law can be called a good law or a bad law based on whether we think it improved or detracted from people’s quality of life… but, by that logic, if someone were to have brutally murdered Maria Schicklgruber in the 1700s, it would have been a morally good act, by way of preventing Hitler from ever existing: ignoring, of course, the impossibility of knowing about the possibility of Hitler in a world where his grandmother was murdered. As a matter of fact, I will milk Godwin’s law even further: modern medicine and space travel, invented by Nazis, have saved and improved more lives than those lost or ruined in the Holocaust, so Hitler was a good guy.

Now we have arrived at anarchy and LibPar. I tend to avoid discussions about Liberty Paradise, except behind closed doors with close friends. People like to (incorrectly) brand anarchism as a utopian philosophy and ridicule it as such. Way back in “Towards a Definition of Anarchy”, I explained that anarchism is not a positive, goal-oriented philosophy but instead is a proscriptive moral claim against criminal institutions. Due to the nature of anarchism and my deontological leanings, discussions as to “the ends in mind” when discussing anarchism vs. statism is inappropriate; such discussions distract from the importance of the issue at hand, namely, “How ought I conduct my affairs in this moment?”

That said, I can engage in a discussion of what I expect LibPar to look like, so long as we keep in mind this important principle: the rest of this post is not a discussion of the necessary result of people behaving in accordance with the principles of anarchy, it is an assessment of a likely possibility, based on my understanding of the human condition and experience. LibPar is a fairy tale that, like the utopian visions of democracy, have no influence on the daily actions of anarchists.

LibPar:
In an ideal state of affairs, I would have the “abolish government” button handed to me from on high and I would make every institution proscribed against in “Towards a Definition of Anarchy” vanish overnight. Yes, the world may be rendered chaotic and in a state of violent upheaval. Some, less domesticated, places would likely continue operations as if nothing had changed, while others may burn to the ground… Of course, that’s what’s happening right now, just on a longer timetable. In a less ideal, but more realistic, state of affairs, the message of freedom and responsibility may reach a sufficient number of people and technology may progress to a point so as to enable the widespread adoption of these beliefs in action. Regardless of the specific events which would lead to the formation of LibPar, what would it look like?

Markets:
Firstly, unlike utopian outlooks, I have no specific design for how the entire world ought to work. I expect, in the open market of ideas and philosophies, that a plethora of societies will form worldwide, each with their own distinct features; some will be better suited for perpetuity while others will not. Such is the way of things; without governments to artificially sustain bad ideas, some societies will collapse under their own weight, while others will flourish if genuinely allowed to compete.

This will likely result in different economic models, such as pure capitalism and pure socialism (think first century Catholics, not USSR or USA), being granted opportunities to succeed without the interference of government guns. So will various alternative markets: gift economies, barter and service, token economies, “smart” economies (think blockchains), honor markets… the theoretical options are limitless. Without global market manipulations and capture, we would actually get a chance to see if any of them work in practice. I have a couple that I’m rooting for, but that’s unimportant.

Dunbar Number:
The human condition is such that we have the capacity for a limited number of meaningful human relationships that one person can maintain at any given time. Anarchist societies will have to reflect this reality in some way. I expect the most likely way the Dunbar Number will be expressed is that such societies will consist of a few hundred or a maximum of one or two thousand. Such a small population also helps prevent the rise of criminal institutions and most considerations delegated to the state in slave societies will simply not be present in a small enough population. Additionally, genuine human interaction becomes essentially unavoidable, the inverse case of urban environments. The essential quality of the Dunbar Number is that, in a community of appropriate size and density so as to promote human flourishing, you would know everyone by name.

Recently, a friend asked me how a small community marketplace could solve moral issues that people generally turn to law to rectify. The example in question was that of strip clubs, which we both find morally objectionable, but not criminal. The Dunbar number, and small community is the way I think the issue naturally gets solved. Stripper Stacy becomes a lot less fun when you know her parents, she lives down the street, and she knows you and the three other dudes that visit the strip club outside of the club. Also, statistically speaking, Stacy is likely to be the only one in the community that would be willing to be a stripper, which would make it more of a small-business-out-of-your-basement kind of operation, which resembles a strip club solely by way of the vicious nature of the specific service. It does not necessarily mean that the service goes away, but it certainly mitigates the impact on the community as well as making a coercive and violent law regarding it superfluous.

Intentionality:
With a population so small, such a community can be centered around a common goal or ideal. Closely tied to the market of markets, there is an infinite number of possible intentional communities: Catholic parishes, hippie communes, AnCap fiefdoms and marketplaces, farming co-ops, tech outfits, brony conventions, and Amish fellowships all come to mind as possibilities. Some may last longer than others, but as long as people are wiling to experiment there will always be a diversity of intentional communities. These societies already exist around the globe, they land all along the anarchist/statist scale, but as a proof-of-concept, they have demonstrated that such a community can flourish over an extended period of time. Ideally, I would like to live in a familial tribe centered around a certain philosophical bent, pursuit of virtue, and self-sufficiency, but that is neither here nor there.

Mobility and Intercommunication:
Simply put, communities of such small populations and of diverse ideas could only be sustainable themselves if mobility from one community to another and the ability to form new ones is a possibility. Additionally, if a community consists of only a few hundred people, the gene pool may get a little shallow without exchange of populations between different communities. Of course, such migration is inevitable if people trade with, communicate with, and travel to other communities. This will rely on technologies similar to the internet, if not the internet itself and technologies like trucks and boats and such… but we’ve had such technologies for a while now. It’s not too much a concern. Really, freedom needs to be open-source, which would allow for exchanging good ideas between communities and the opportunity to copy what works and improve on what is available.

Security:
There are a multitude of ways that an individual can render themselves “secure”. One such manner is with the proper tools and training (AKA guns and the ability to shoot them), another would be a nomadic lifestyle, another would be remoteness (if no one can be bothered to seek you out, they can’t bother you), another would be to position your hippie commune such that it is surrounded by radically isolationist militia-type communities… the list of possibilities is longer than I can come up with on my own. What is important is the ability for individuals within an intentional community to defend themselves from others in their community and those around them.

Sustainability:
I don’t mean the liberal socialist environmental bullshit, but instead focusing on options which are either cost-neutral or renewable. An example would be making sure one does not deplete the surrounding ecosystem or raw materials (growing hemp permaculture rather than resorting to deforestation and mass agriculture for paper, textiles, construction materials, etc.) or carefully managed hatcheries separate from the native population of fish, or nuclear/passive power generation as opposed to fossil fuels. Not for any pie-in-the-sky theories about preventing global warming or whatever, but because reliance on sustainable resources and infrastructures eliminates the spectre of “the tragedy of the commons” as well as eliminating the need for state institutions built for subsidizing irresponsible industrial practices.

Remember, anarchism is a philosophy of moral action and personal responsibility, not some utopian attempt at a global Galt’s Gulch. If you think it is, you’ve confused anarchy with the Libertarian Party. The point of this post is to assuage those who find anarchy to be too short-sighted and not utilitarian enough, to tell them that there is consideration applied to an ultimate goal, even if it is secondary to simply doing the right thing. The goal isn’t to eliminate struggle or conflict, but to mitigate the damage that the human condition can do to human flourishing at large.